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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23099707">The Empty Space Between the Lines</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm'>Drag0nst0rm</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, And it devours even memory in the end, Angst, Gen, Horror, The Void is hungry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:20:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,173</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23099707</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There are empty spaces in their minds where memories should be.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annatar &amp; Celebrimbor | Telperinquar, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar &amp; Narvi, Elrond Peredhel &amp; Maglor | Makalaurë, Fëanor | Curufinwë &amp; Rúmil of Tirion, Maglor | Makalaurë &amp; Nerdanel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>171</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I don't own the Silmarillion.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s a question from a student that first draws him.</p><p>It’s the same lecture Rumil gives every year to the bright eyed students in his introductory course at the University in Tirion. He is in the middle of listing the reasons his Sarati alphabet was eventually replaced by Tengwar, and one of the students raises her hand.</p><p>“Did you invent the Tengwar too, Professor?”</p><p>“No,” he says, a little sourly, because the Tengwar is a better system, but there is still something about the elegant simplicity of Sarati that he misses.</p><p>“So who did?” she persists, and -</p><p>And Rumil opens his mouth and realizes he doesn’t know.</p><p>“A precocious little upstart,” he says without thinking about it, and the whole class laughs and moves on.</p><p>They’re young. They don’t remember the endless debates, fierce enough to rival the shift away from Þ. They don’t quite realize how odd It is that he cannot remember the name of the elf whose system of writing replaced his own.</p><p><em>A precocious little upstart,</em> he had said, and for a moment he had inexplicably felt fond.</p><p>The moment the lecture is finished, Rumil snatches up his notes and retreats to where he always goes when he needs answers he doesn’t quite dare ask.</p><p>The library.</p><p> </p><p>There are plenty of books analyzing Tengwar. He sorts through them all until he finds the oldest, the one to introduce it. </p><p>This is no scribe’s copy, he discovers quickly as he flips through it; this is the original, written in a hasty hand, every stroke of the quill blazing with excitement. It begins in Sarati before introducing its alphabet and shifting into it with a speed that must have bewildered the original audience. </p><p>Surely he has read this before. Surely he must have, as soon as Tengwar came to his attention. Surely - </p><p><em>Suggestions for the Improvement of Our Alphabet</em> is written grandly across the first page. A more personal note is scratched underneath: </p><p>
  <em>To Master Rumil, with my compliments.</em>
</p><p>To Master Rumil.</p><p>The book shakes in his hands.</p><p>It takes four attempts for him to notice that no matter how he tries to look at it, his eyes always glance away from the name written beneath.</p><p>He rips through the library mercilessly, scorning sleep, until he once again finds a name his eyes glance away from. He snatches it up and keeps hunting until the stack of books and pamphlets totters in his arms.</p><p>
  <em>Suggestions for the Improvement of the Forging of Metals.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>On the Making of Jewels.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>On the Importance of Þ.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>On the Imperative of Journeying East.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>On the Statute of Miriel.</em>
</p><p>Miriel.</p><p>There is only one woman in these lands who has ever borne that name.</p><p> </p><p>The work is - personal. Surprisingly so. </p><p>And passionate, more so than he would have thought anyone would have dared to be once the judgement had been handed down. </p><p>Miriel had died in childbirth, he remembers, and his mind tries to slip away from that thought, but he catches it and holds on with all his might.</p><p>Childbirth.</p><p>Miriel had died in childbirth.</p><p>Yet he can’t remember anyone ever speaking of her child.</p><p>He can’t remember.</p><p>A scroll containing the genealogy of the House of Finwe is not difficult to find. It all but falls onto the table from his shaking hands, and there they are, the familiar lines: Finarfin, Fingolfin, Findis, Lalwen. Findis and Lalwen’s names stand alone; Fingolfin and Finarfin’s split into long, complicated branches. Off to one side, there is Nerdanel, and her son Maglor, of course, and her grandson Celebrimbor -</p><p>His eyes skate away from it whenever he tries to look at it for too long. A blinding pain is building in his head, but he grits his teeth and squints his eyes and looks anyway.</p><p>Celebrimbor is the grandson of Nerdanel, but he is not the son of Maglor. He is the son of -</p><p>He takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes against the sudden stab of pain.</p><p>He is the son of Nirivel, who is not the daughter of Nerdanel, which means Nerdanel must have had another son - </p><p>He bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, but he clings to the thought. Celebrimbor is the son of Nirivel and - someone. That’s all that matters right now.</p><p>Nerdanel herself is not the daughter of Finwe, but she’s still on the genealogy. Which means - </p><p>Spikes of pain force him to all but collapse into his chair, but he holds on.</p><p>Which means she had married a son of Finwe. A son that is not Fingolfin or Finarfin.</p><p><em>A precocious little upstart,</em> he had said, inexplicably fond.</p><p>So. So there had been - someone. Someone who had sired at least two sons. </p><p>Someone who had wanted to go east.</p><p>And they had gone east, some of them. They had fought a war against — </p><p>Against Sauron, yes, but it hadn’t been just him, that had come later, there had been, there had been — </p><p>He all but staggers to the section on the war. He needs sleep, he thinks blearily, but he can’t not yet, not until he sees.</p><p>There was a war, a war against M̨͠͞͝o̧̧͘͞r̵̸̶͢ǵ̷̨̧͟o̧̕͏t̡̕͡h̵͡. The darkness had fallen and F͏́͘҉e̸̸͟͟a͘͘҉͟n̵̨̕͘͡o̢̡̧͡r̨͞͠  had led his followers to Alqualonde and stolen boats with which to cross the ocean. But F͏́͘҉e̸̸͟͟a͘͘҉͟n̵̨̕͘͡o̢̡̧͡r̨͞͠ had died soon after the crossing, and his son, M҉̀á͜͡e͜͢͜d̴̴̷̡͡h̨̧́r̨҉̕̕͡ǫs͏͜҉, had become king, but he had been captured so Maglor had taken the crown and led his five remaining brothers.</p><p>Five remaining brothers.</p><p>Rumil tried to wipe away the blurriness from his eyes.</p><p>His hand comes away streaked with blood.</p><p>His hands feel numb, but he flips back in the book anyway. There had been something. Something about an oath.</p><p>To the everlasting darkness, they had sworn and then - didn’t - didn’t -  he almost, almost remembers -</p><p>He flips to the end.</p><p>M̨͠͞͝o̧̧͘͞r̵̸̶͢ǵ̷̨̧͟o̧̕͏t̡̕͡h̵͡ had been thrown out into the outer darkness, and that meant, that meant -</p><p>The book fell from his hands. He clutches his head in his hands as he tries to bite back a cry of pain.</p><p>Into the void. They had died and gone into the void, all except Maglor and little Celebrimbor. The first time he had seen the child, little Tyelpe had been twisting pieces of wire together into something that would have been impressive for someone twice his age, and Rumil had turned to - </p><p> <em> F͏́͘҉e̸̸͟͟a͘͘҉͟n̵̨̕͘͡o̢̡̧͡r̨͞͠-</em></p><p>To the child’s grandfather and said, “That one’ll give you a run for your money one day,” and the man -</p><p>
  <em>Dark hair, blurred face, but he remembered the stress lines that had formed around his eyes, lines that he had never remembered seeing before -</em>
</p><p>The man had said -</p><p>His one-time <em>student</em> had said -</p><p>The pain behind his eyes feels like <em>fire.</em></p><p>
  <em>That was what they called you. The Spirit of Fire. But that wasn’t your name, what was your name, WHAT WAS YOUR NAME - </em>
</p><p>“Feanor,” he forces out, and he collapses onto the desk.</p><p> </p><p>He wakes up later than he should in the morning. He’ll be late for his lecture, but it’s another introductory course; none of the students will dare to mention it to him.</p><p>He must have been working far too late into the night, he muses ruefully. He can’t even remember most of what he was looking at, and the quick eye he sweeps over his books selections hardly helps. He has everything from linguistics to the history of the Great War spread before him, and while those could arguably be linked, he can’t imagine what a book on forging is doing among them. </p><p>He has no time for more than the swiftest of glances, though, his eyes just skating along the covers. He certainly doesn’t have time to try to recreate whatever thought process had seemed like a good idea at midnight last night. He ought to know better than to try to work that late.</p><p>He’ll ask a library aide to clean it all up, he thinks, except -</p><p>He snatches up <em>Suggestions for the Improvement of Our Alphabet</em> on impulse and takes it to the front desk.</p><p>Elariel smiles cheerfully at him as she notes the checkout down in her logbook. “This one again, Master Rumil?”</p><p>“Again?” he asks absently.</p><p>Her mouth opens to answer, but then a puzzled look crosses her face, and she shakes her head. “I thought - For a moment I thought I remembered - “ She shakes her head again, ruefully. “Never mind me, Master Rumil. My dreams are still clinging like cobwebs to my head.”</p><p>“I know the feeling,” he says, and he hurries off to class.</p><p>The book is still clutched tightly in his arms.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Curufin</em>
</p>
<p>It hurts the others to look at Curufin, after, and he knows it. It hurts him too.</p>
<p>He is the very image of his father, he bears his father’s name, and even his mother name comes back to Feanor in the end. No one could look at him and forget, but no one wants to remember because the Void has crept into all their minds through the door that the Oath had cracked open for it. </p>
<p>The Void steals in and eats and <em>eats,</em> and Curufin doesn’t think he would even notice it was there if it weren’t for the blazing fire of the Oath fighting it, beating it back, if only for now.</p>
<p>But the Void can’t take everything. Memory, yes, but the imprints elven fea leave on each other, the way they twine together when emotion spikes strong - Echoes, edges, ragged remnants remain, even in those not twice sworn to the Oath. But looking at them means looking at the mind breaking terror of the Void, and it hurts, though Curufin isn’t sure if the pain comes from bumping up against the Void, or if the pain is their minds’ way of warning them to stop. Look away.</p>
<p>Curufin will never look away. Thanks to the Oath, he doesn’t have to.</p>
<p>He wonders, later, after Finrod, if throwing himself against the Void, time and time again, has done something to his mind. Twisted something.</p>
<p>But he can’t afford to worry about it, and maybe he would have done it all anyway.</p>
<p>If his deed fails, then someday Celebrimbor will bear the same confused look on his face when someone mentions his father as he does now when they speak of Feanor, and Curufin would rather his son hate him than that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Celebrimbor</em>
</p>
<p>At night, when his mind’s defenses are weakest, he can almost remember the sound of his father’s voice.</p>
<p>He knows he had a father. He <em>knows</em> he did. He had a mother, which means he is not one of the fatherless that rose under the stars. He has a father. He does.</p>
<p>He wakes more mornings than not with blood on his pillow, and none of the healers can help.</p>
<p>He asks Elrond, eventually, when he comes to visit Eregion, and his cousin speaks carefully and slowly, with his voice cracking with the pain.</p>
<p>And then -</p>
<p>And then Celebrimbor doesn’t remember what he said next.</p>
<p>“He told me it was dangerous,” Narvi tells him later. She looks worried for him. “He said it was alright to tell me because I don’t have any memories to try to reach for - It’s all just stories, nothing more. But he said it was different for you.”</p>
<p>“But he told you,” Celebrimbor says desperately. “You know.”</p>
<p>She nods slowly. “Aye, lad. And he told me to tell you whenever you ask, that it was better to just get it over with than to let you pound away at it and hurt yourself more. But - be careful, alright?”</p>
<p>Celebrimbor shakes his head, dismissing this. “Tell me,” he pleads, and he holds onto the name as long as he can.</p>
<p>He had avoided his family’s sigil for years because looking at it makes something in his mind <em>scream,</em> like metal being twisted too far out of place, but he puts it on everything he makes now. Every time he looks at it, he can almost remember what Narvi tells him. He can’t hear her, in his memory, but he can see her mouth shaping the words.</p>
<p>
  <em>Father. Father. Father.</em>
</p>
<p>Annatar, when he comes, mentions offhandedly that Celebrimbor’s work has surpassed his father’s, and Celebrimbor forgets all about his suspicions and grabs the Maia’s arm. “You knew my father?”</p>
<p>Annatar’s eyes are wide and interested. “A little, in Aman. I knew one of your uncles better.”</p>
<p>One of. Not just Maglor.</p>
<p>He wants to remember them all.</p>
<p>Annatar is fascinated by his obsession. He thinks there might be a way to magnify Celebrimbor’s ability to hold onto the memories, and he’s far less of a worrier than Narvi when it comes to testing to see if their latest attempt has worked.</p>
<p>“I served M̨͠͞͝o̧̧͘͞r̵̸̶͢ǵ̷̨̧͟o̧̕͏t̡̕͡h̵͡,” Annatar tells him, and Celebrimbor’s mind feels as if it’s on <em>fire.</em></p>
<p>Annatar does this six times. Each time, Celebrimbor wakes in the morning with nothing but a headache to remember the night before.</p>
<p>Annatar always seems amused by something on those mornings.</p>
<p>The sixth time, Celebrimbor knows why, because the sixth time, he manages to leave himself a note.</p>
<p><em>The Enemy,</em> it says on his floorboards in his own handwriting. It looks like it’s been scrawled in blood.</p>
<p>He makes his rings in secret after that, and he wears them when he confronts Annatar.</p>
<p>
  <em>Feanor, Maedhros, Celegorm, Caranthir, Amrod, Amras.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Curufin.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>FATHER.</em>
</p>
<p>And Morgoth.</p>
<p>The rings are designed to preserve, to heal, and wearing them, he can remember - Not all. There are swathes in his head that have been ripped through, torn out, and he can see their absence clearly now, but he remembers. He remembers his father’s face, his father’s voice.</p>
<p>His father’s deeds.</p>
<p>He also remembers Morgoth’s deeds, and for those he forbids Annatar - Sauron - to stay.</p>
<p>But that won’t be the end of it. Not against Sauron.</p>
<p>He weeps to do it, but he takes off the rings and bids farewell to memory as he sends them away.</p>
<p>Sauron tries to break him, later. He doesn’t realize that Celebrimbor is far more efficiently breaking himself to another end entirely, throwing his exhausted mind, again and again, against the hungry edges of the Void, tearing bloody swathes through his mind, until there is no sense or memory left for Sauron to pry from its depths.</p>
<p>(In death, there is nothing but memory, and the dead are not concerned by the horrors and paradoxes that bewilder the living. In death, Celebrimbor remembers perfectly.)</p>
<p>(In death, he is still alone.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Elrond</em>
</p>
<p>The Maiar are not troubled by the Void. They came from it.</p>
<p>Elrond is not one of them, but their blood runs in his veins. Thinking of Maedhros brings him pain, but it is nothing worse than the pain of reading too many books too far into the night.</p>
<p>It brings him far greater pain that he must remember alone.</p>
<p>The rings change that, at least a little. Galadriel and Cirdan remember, at least for a time.</p>
<p>Cirdan gives his up to Gandalf because he is convinced someone has to, and of the three of them, it hurts him the least to forget.</p>
<p>But even the blood of Melian cannot protect him forever. Even the ring cannot.</p>
<p>And he feels … weary. So weary, his mind fraying around the edges.</p>
<p>But he will not leave without hunting down the one Feanorian no one has yet had to forget.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Maglor</em>
</p>
<p>Maglor’s Oath binds him still. It also protects him still.</p>
<p>He wanders across Middle Earth, singing the Noldolante and never mind the blood that pools in his mouth and creeps from his eyes. It burns his throat, but not the Men’s ears. They have no memory of these times to hurl themselves against.</p>
<p>But he can create memory through his stories. He will make his father’s vow true, even if all he can fulfill is the promise of songs to the end of Arda.</p>
<p>He intends to do it forever, but when Elrond comes - When Elrond hears, and says softly, afterward, “I was so sorry when I realized Maedhros was gone - “</p>
<p>For Elrond, he would have gone anyway, but he would have argued because he knows it will make things harder for Elrond, and he would do almost anything not to make things harder for Elrond now. </p>
<p>But Elrond remembers, and he is not strong enough to even try to argue against going with someone who can still do that. </p>
<p>He also thinks it might be - safer.</p>
<p>He sees things, now, when he closes his eyes. Shadows dancing just out of sight.</p>
<p>It is probably best that he not be left alone. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Nerdanel</em>
</p>
<p>She lives in their house in Tirion. It is a perfectly ordinary house.</p>
<p>But no one wants to visit her long, not even her parents. Their eyes twist away from even the most ordinary objects in it, as if even looking at them gives them pain. The younger elves don’t seem to mind as much, but the younger elves have no reason to visit her.</p>
<p>Nerdanel barely notices the pain now. She just pours it into her sculptures, twisting masses of stone that curve in ways it ought not to and that suggests faces, screaming in agony, that disappear when you don’t look at them just exactly right.</p>
<p>She can’t quite capture what she wants to. She wants to make - She wants to make -</p>
<p>She can never quite remember until that moment between awareness and sleep, right before she slips into her dreams.</p>
<p>She likes the number seven, though she is not quite sure why. She puts seven chairs in the kitchen, seven plates on the table, seven children in her latest sculpture -</p>
<p>She cries over that last, and she is never quite sure why.</p>
<p>(She knows why. She discovers why. Again and again and again she learns why, and she screams and screams and screams until they drag her off to Lorien. Eventually, she stops screaming and makes nice simple pots that don’t hurt anyone’s eyes, and then she is allowed to go where she wills again.)</p>
<p>(She always comes back to the house in Tirion, and the process starts all over again.)</p>
<p>When she sees Maglor, standing hesitantly in the doorway, she does not scream, but she does cry.</p>
<p>“Seven, seven, seven,” she chants as she embraces him desperately.</p>
<p>“I know,” he whispers back, and for just a moment, everything is almost alright.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Earendil</em>
</p>
<p>“I can’t explain,” his one remaining son tells him desperately. “Just - please, Ada. Please, let me have it, just for a night, so I can try.”</p>
<p>Earendil doesn’t understand, but his wife seems to, and its his son asking, so of course he hands over the Silmaril, just for the night.</p>
<p>(Sometimes - sometimes, when he flies, he thinks he hears it whisper to him. He can never remember what it says.)</p>
<p>Elrond doesn’t know if it’ll work. Maedhros’s gem is gone beyond recall, but it was held by a Feanorian so maybe, <em>maybe -</em></p>
<p>Maglor is braced for pain but determined.</p>
<p>Elrond tips the gem into his hand.</p>
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